World Crises Crash Biden's Home-Front Agenda
![a man wearing a suit and tie]({"default":{"load":"default","w":"27","h":"18","src":"//img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/AAKiL9i.img?h=362&w=540&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f"},"dpi":2})
© Anna Moneymaker/Getty ImagesWASHINGTON—President Biden went to Michigan last week to promote American autos, only to be greeted by Arab-Americans protesting his Middle East policies, in the latest instance in which a foreign-policy crisis has impinged on the home-front issues at the top of his agenda.
Time and again this year, as Mr. Biden has focused on what he considers an all-important domestic agenda, he has faced emerging problems overseas: Russia’s troop buildup near Ukraine, confrontation with Chinese diplomats, an explosive virus surge in India.
Last week saw a cease-fire in an 11-day crisis in the Middle East in which war broke out between the Israelis and Palestinians, overshadowing Mr. Biden’s schedule and distracting from a series of preplanned events.
Mr. Biden has pursued the most progressive domestic-policy program in generations, including trillions of dollars in spending on infrastructure, education and child care, while tackling the pandemic.
White House officials have long said they wanted to give priority to domestic issues to ensure the country is strong enough to lead overseas. A former U.S. official with close contact to the administration said that the calculation was to put a hold on intensive global engagement until the administration could bolster the economy and address the pandemic.
For that reason, top officials chose to delay nominations of ambassadors to key foreign posts and any new endeavors with foreign partners until they take health and economic steps they consider needed at home so the U.S. can “confront China and other superpowers in a meaningful way,” the official said.
The domestic emphasis is unlikely to shift in the near-term. With slim Democratic control of the Senate and House and with midterm elections looming, the White House is pursuing an aggressive timeline as it presses Congress to pass its program and contends with a growing wish list from its liberal base, including election and policing changes.
Mr. Biden and his top aides for several months avoided taking foreign trips, a precaution forced by the pandemic that also helped avoid headlines that might undercut the domestic emphasis. White House officials have said their plan early on was to focus on the pandemic and stay safe, but also to signal that the administration would tackle domestic issues first before it turned its attention overseas.
Meanwhile, a series of policy reviews, on issues including North Korea, China and the Middle East, allowed the administration to take extra time before confronting those issues.
“The Biden administration has worked mightily to respond to the interests of the American people,” said Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D., Mich.), a former Pentagon official and CIA analyst. “But the national security folks at the White House always knew the enemy gets a vote.”
As world problems mount and with the end of the pandemic coming into view, Mr. Biden has begun to increase his involvement in foreign-policy matters.
“There’s only so much agenda setting that you can do in the White House,” said David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama. “It is the nerve center of the world and the world is a nervous place.”
Among coming foreign-policy steps, Mr. Biden will take his first trip overseas, heading to the United Kingdom and Belgium in June for a gathering of leaders from the Group of Seven nations, along with a possible meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The administration also is poised to announce a series of high-profile ambassadorships, after being slow to fill out the team in key areas such as Israel and China. Mr. Biden has faced pressure to install more career diplomats over allies and campaign donors.
In addition, deadlines for some of the foreign-policy reviews are up in the coming months, allowing the administration to begin addressing relations with other countries and U.S. military deployments around the world.
White House officials said they have been doing the spadework of managing international relations all along, and that what they tout as Mr. Biden’s success last week in helping to broker the end of the 11-day conflict in the Mideast is a product of that quiet diplomacy.
There are many items on Mr. Biden’s global plate, from redefining relations with China to countering Russian aggression toward Ukraine. He faces a nuclear-weapons challenge from North Korea and is overseeing a realignment of military resources away from the Middle East toward competition with China and Russia, while seeking a new nuclear deal with Iran. His April decision to withdraw American forces from Afghanistan this year, ending the U.S. role in a 20-year conflict, may lead to a new crisis if the Afghan government falls to the Taliban.
Democrats praise Mr. Biden’s approach, but the global flare-ups have given ground to critics, who have seized on the president’s stands as international issues crop up.
“I don’t think it’s a matter of Joe Biden being too focused on the home front or distracted,” said Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) “I think it’s just a matter of bad policies, being weak.”
Some former officials said Mr. Biden hasn’t ignored foreign policy, but is pushing a domestic agenda that will require extensive attention and effort.
“I think that what Biden is trying to do is deliver on a very ambitious set of promises—promises that we haven’t really seen since the New Deal,” said Charles Kupchan, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and professor at Georgetown University who served in the Clinton and Obama administrations. “That’s going to require enormous political heavy lifting.”
No comments:
Post a Comment